Calderon v. People of the State of California
- Lin
- 3:23-cv-05298
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Calderon v. People of California, Judge Lin dismissed his habeas petition without prejudice and granted his request to proceed without paying the filing fee.
Juan Carlos Calderon’s habeas case was dismissed without prejudice; the respondent received judgment in its favor, and Calderon’s request to proceed without paying the filing fee was granted.
What happened
In Calderon v. People of the State of California, Juan Carlos Calderon filed a petition challenging state convictions. But the court said he was actually challenging how state and federal actors handled his earlier petitions, which he alleged was biased and corrupt.
The court explained that those claims do not belong in a petition challenging the legality or length of confinement. They instead must be brought as a civil-rights lawsuit. The court chose not to convert Calderon’s petition because doing so could impose a larger filing fee and other consequences.
Judge Rita F. Lin dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning Calderon could file a separate civil-rights action if he wished. Judge Lin also granted his request to proceed without paying the filing fee, directed the clerk to enter judgment for the respondent, and closed the case.
The detailed version
- Calderon v. People of the State of California · No. 3:23-cv-05298
- Lin
- Dec. 19, 2023
Background
Juan Carlos Calderon filed this action under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, the federal law used to challenge the legality of state-court convictions or confinement. The court reviewed his petition and concluded that he was not directly challenging the legality of his underlying state convictions. Instead, he sought to sue state and federal actors over what he described as the biased and corrupt handling of his earlier habeas petitions.
Court’s analysis
The court held that these allegations were not properly raised in a habeas case. It explained that challenges to the legality or duration of confinement belong in habeas proceedings, while the claims Calderon described must be brought as a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The court acknowledged that it could, in some circumstances, treat a habeas petition as a civil-rights complaint, but decided not to do so here. It noted that a habeas filing fee is five dollars, while the fee for a civil-rights case is $405, or $350 if the plaintiff is allowed to proceed without paying the fee. Under the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, a prisoner must pay that civil-rights filing fee through deductions from the prisoner’s trust account, even when the prisoner receives that status. The court also noted that dismissal of a civil-rights complaint as malicious, frivolous, or for failure to state a claim can count as a strike under federal law, unlike dismissal of a habeas case.
Disposition
The court dismissed the case without prejudice to Calderon filing a civil-rights action if he wished to do so. It granted Calderon’s motion to proceed without paying the filing fee, directed the clerk to enter judgment in favor of the respondent, and ordered the file closed. The court did not decide whether Calderon’s allegations about the handling of his earlier petitions were legally valid.
Classification
This is a procedural order because the court dismissed the habeas case after determining that the claims were brought in the wrong type of proceeding, without deciding the merits of those claims or the legality of Calderon’s convictions.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.